ndrew Jones was thinking of marriage and failure as he sipped Jack Daniel's Black, straight up, from a short glass. He was well aware that everyone who knew him thought it was long past time for him to turn the page on his divorce and move on.

But he didn't feel like moving on. Not when it was so comforting to wallow.

Marriage had been an enormous step for him, and one he'd considered carefully even though he'd been wildly in love. Making that commitment, turning an emotion into a legal document, had given him many sleepless nights. No one on the Jones side of the family had ever made a successful run at marriage.

He and Miranda called it the Jones curse.

His grandmother had outlived her husband by more than a decade and had never—at least in her grandson's hearing—had a good word to say about the man she'd lived with for thirty-odd years.

It was hard to blame her, as the late and unlamented Andrew Jones had been infamous for his affection for young blondes and Jack Daniel's Black.

His namesake was well aware that the old man had been a bastard, clever and successful, but a bastard nonetheless.

Andrew's father preferred digs to home fires, and had spent most of his son's childhood away from home, brushing ancient dirt from ancient bones. When he was in residence, he'd agreed with everything his wife said, blinked owlishly at his children as if he'd forgotten how they came to be in his line of sight, and locked himself for hours at a time in his office.

It hadn't been women and whiskey for Charles Jones. He'd committed his adultery and neglect with science.

Not that the great Dr. Elizabeth Standford-Jones had given a shit, Andrew thought as he brooded over what he'd intended to be one friendly drink at Annie's Place. She'd left the child-rearing to servants, run the household like a Nazi general, and ignored her husband as sublimely as he had ignored her.

It always made Andrew shudder to imagine that at least twice, these cold-blooded, self-absorbed people had tangled in bed long enough to conceive a couple of children.

When he was a boy, Andrew had often fantasized that Charles and Elizabeth had purchased him and his sister from some poor couple who'd wept copiously when they traded their children for rent money.

When he was older, he'd enjoyed imagining that he and Miranda had been created in a lab, experiments conceived out of science rather than sex.

But the sad fact was that there was too much Jones in him for it not to have come down naturally.

Yeah, he thought, and lifted his glass, old Charles and Elizabeth had tangoed one night thirty-three years ago and conceived the next generation of assholes.

But he'd tried, Andrew told himself, letting the whiskey slide down his throat in a hot caress. He'd done his best to make his marriage work, to make Elise happy, to be the kind of husband she wanted and break the Jones curse.

And had failed all around.

"I'll take another, Annie."

"No, you won't."

Andrew shifted on his stool, sighed gustily. He'd known Annie McLean most of his life, and knew how to get around her.

In the sweet summer when they were seventeen, they'd tumbled together onto a rough blanket over rougher sand and had made love by the crashing waves of the Atlantic.

He supposed the stumbling sex—which had turned out to be a first for both of them—had as much to do with the beer they'd consumed, the night itself, and the foolishness of youth as the licks of heat they'd sparked off each other.

And neither of them could have known what that one night, those few hot hours by the sea, would do to both of them.

"Come on, Annie, let me have another drink."

"You've already had two."

"So one more won't hurt."

Annie finished drawing a beer, slid the mug gracefully down the length of the cherry wood bar toward the waiting customer. Briskly, she wiped her narrow hands on her bar apron.

At five-six and a hundred thirty well-toned pounds, Annie McLean gave the impression of no-nonsense competence.

A select few—including a two-timing cheat of an ex-husband—knew there was a delicate-winged blue butterfly on her butt.

Her wheat-colored hair was worn short and spiky to frame a face more interesting than pretty. Her chin was pointed, her nose listed slightly to the left and was splattered with freckles. Her voice was pure Down East and tended to flatten vowels.

She could, and had, tossed grown men out of her bar with her own work-roughened hands.

Annie's Place was hers because she'd made it hers. She'd sunk every penny of her savings from her days of cocktail waitressing into the bar—every penny her slick-talking ex hadn't run off with—and had begged and borrowed the rest. She'd worked day and night transforming what had been little more than a cellar into a comfortable neighborhood bar.

She ran a clean place, knew her regulars, their families, their troubles. She knew when to draw another draft, when to switch to coffee, and when to demand car keys and call cabs.

She looked at Andrew and shook her head. He'd drink himself blind if she let him.

"Andrew, go home. Make yourself a meal."

"I'm not hungry." He smiled, knowing how to put his dimples to work. "It's cold and rainy out, Annie. I just want a little something to warm the blood."

"Fine." She turned to the coffee station and filled a mug from the pot. "This is hot and fresh."

"Christ. I can go right down the street and get a goddamn drink without the hassle."

She merely lifted her eyebrows. "Drink your coffee and stop whining." With this, she began to work her way down the bar.

The rain was keeping most of her customers home. But those who had braved the storm were glued to their seats, sipping beer, watching the sports channel on TV, huddled in conversations.

There was a pretty fire burning in the little stone hearth and someone had plugged in quarters and Ella Fitzgerald on the juke.

It was her kind of night. Warm, friendly, easy. This was the reason she'd been willing to risk every dime, to work her hands raw and lie awake in bed worrying night after night. Not many had believed she could succeed, a twenty-six-year-old woman whose only business experience had come from serving mugs of beer and counting tips.

Seven years later, and Annie's Place was a Jones Point standard.

Andrew had believed, she remembered with a tug of guilt as she saw him stomp out of the bar. He'd lent her money when the banks wouldn't. He'd come by with sandwiches when she'd been painting walls and staining wood. He'd listened to her dreams when others had ignored them.

He figured he owed her, she thought now. And he was a decent man who paid his debts.

But he couldn't erase the night sixteen years before when, lost in love with him, she'd given him her innocence, taken his. He couldn't make her forget that in doing so they'd created a life, one that had flickered only briefly.

He couldn't make her forget the look on his face when, with joy leaping under terror, she'd told him she was pregnant. His face had gone blank, his body stiff as he sat on the rock on the long stretch of beach and stared out to sea.

And his voice had been flat, cool, impersonal when he offered to marry her.

Paying a debt, she thought now. Nothing more, nothing less. And by offering to do what most would consider the honorable thing, he'd broken her heart.

Losing the baby only two weeks later was fate, she supposed. It had spared both of them overwhelming decisions. But she'd loved what had been growing inside her, just as she'd loved Andrew.

Once she accepted the baby was gone, she'd stopped loving. That, she knew, had been as much a relief to Andrew as it had been to her.

The hum of friendship, she thought, was a lot easier to dance to than the pluck of heartstrings.

Damn women were the bane of his existence, Andrew decided as he unlocked his car and climbed behind the wheel. Always telling you what to do, how to do it, and most of all how you were doing it wrong.

He was glad he was done with them.

He was better off burying himself in work at the Institute by day and blurring the edges with whiskey at night. Nobody got hurt that way. Especially him.

Now he was much too sober, and the night ahead was much too long.

He drove through the rain, wondering what it would be like to just keep driving. To go until he just ran out of gas and start fresh wherever that might be. He could change his name, get a job in construction. He had a strong back and good hands. Maybe hard, manual labor was the answer.

No one would know him, or expect anything of him.

But he knew he wouldn't. He would never leave the Institute. It was, as nothing else had ever been, home. He needed it every bit as much as it needed him.

Well, he had a bottle or two at the house. There was no reason he couldn't have a couple drinks in front of his own fire to lull him to sleep.

But he saw the lights winking through the rain as he drove up the winding lane. Miranda. He hadn't expected his sister home, not for days yet. His fingers tightened on the wheel as he thought of her in Florence, with Elise. It took him several minutes after he'd stopped the car before he was able to relax them.

The wind whipped at him as he shoved the car door open. Rain slapped at his face and streamed down his collar. Directly over the peaks and gables of the house, the sky exploded with sharp forks of lightning.

A wild night. He imagined Miranda was inside enjoying it. She loved a good storm. For himself, he would take peace, quiet, and oblivion.

He dashed toward the door, then shook himself like a dog the minute he was inside the foyer. He hung his wet coat on the old oak hall rack, dragged a hand through his hair without glancing in the antique mirror. He could hear the funereal tones of Mozart's Requiem coming from the parlor.

If Miranda was playing that, he knew the trip hadn't gone well.

He found her curled up in a chair in front of the fire, bundled into her favored gray cashmere robe, sipping tea from their grandmother's best china.

All of her comfort tools, he noted, neatly in place.

"You're back early."

"Looks that way." She studied him. She was sure he'd been drinking, but his eyes were clear, his color normal. At least he was still marginally sober.

Though he wanted a drink, he sat down across from her. It was easy to spot the signs of simmering temper. But he knew her better than anyone, and could also see the misery under it. "So, what's the deal?"

"She had a project for me." Because she'd hoped he would come home before she went to bed, Miranda had brought two cups. She poured tea into the second now and pretended she didn't see Andrew's wince of distaste.

She knew very well he'd prefer a glass of whiskey.

"An incredible project," Miranda continued, holding out the cup and saucer. "A bronze was discovered in the cellar of the Villa della Donna Oscura. Do you know the history of the place?"

"Refresh me."

"Giulietta Buonadoni."

"Okay, got it. The Dark Lady, a mistress of one of the Medicis."

"Lorenzo the Magnificent—at least he was her first protector," Miranda specified, grateful that Andrew's knowledge of the era was thorough enough. It would save time. "The bronze was of the lady herself, no mistaking that face. She wanted me to do the tests, the dating."

He waited a beat. "Elise could have handled it."

"Elise's field is broader than mine." There was a hint of annoyance in Miranda's tone. "Renaissance is my era, bronzes my specialty. Elizabeth wanted the best."

"She always does. So, you ran the tests?"

"I ran them. I ran them again. I had top members of the staff assisting me. I did everything, personally, step by step. Then I went back and did it all again."

"And?"

"It was genuine, Andrew." Some of the excitement leaked through as she leaned forward. "Late fifteenth century."

"That's incredible. Wonderful. Why aren't you celebrating?"

"There's more." She had to take a breath, steady herself. "It's a Michelangelo."

"Jesus." He set his cup aside hurriedly. "Are you sure? I don't remember anything about a lost bronze."

A stubborn line dug its way between her eyebrows. "I'd stake my reputation on it. It's an early work, brilliantly executed—it's a gorgeous piece, echoing the sensual style of his drunken Bacchus. I was still working on documentation when I left, but there's enough to support it."

"The bronze wasn't documented?"

Miranda began to tap her foot in irritation. "Giulietta probably hid it, or at least kept it to herself. Politics. It fits," she insisted. "I'd have proven it without a doubt if she'd given me more time."

"Why didn't she?"

Unable to sit, Miranda unfolded her legs and got up to jab at the fire with a poker. "Someone leaked it to the press. We weren't nearly ready for an official announcement, and the government got nervous. They fired Standjo, and she fired me. She accused me of leaking it." Furious, she whirled back. "Of wanting the glory so badly I'd have risked the project to get it. I would never have done that."

"No, of course not." He could brush that aside without a thought. "They fired her." Though it was small of him, he couldn't quite stop the grin. "I bet that set her off."

"She was livid. Under other circumstances, I might get some satisfaction out of that. But now I've lost the project. Not only won't I get credit, but the only way I'll see that piece again is in a museum. Damn it, Andrew, I was so close."

"You can bet that when the bronze is authenticated and announced, she'll find a way to get Standjo's name in it." He arched a brow at his sister. "And when she does, you'll just have to make sure yours isn't left out."

"It's not the same." She took it away from me, was all Miranda could think.

"Take what you can get." He rose as well, wandering over to the liquor cabinet. Because he would have to ask. "You saw Elise?"

"Yes." Miranda slid her hands into the pockets of her robe. Because she would have to answer. "She looks fine. I think she's well suited to managing the lab there. She asked how you were."

"And you told her I was just dandy."

Miranda watched him pour the first drink. "I didn't think you wanted me to tell her you were turning into a brooding, self-destructive drunk."

"I've always brooded," he said, saluting her. "All of us do, so that doesn't count. Is she seeing anyone?"

"I don't know. We never got around to discussing our sex lives. Andrew, you have to stop this."

"Why?"

"Because it's a waste and it's stupid. And frankly, though I like her, she's not worth it." She lifted her shoulders. "No one's worth it."

"I loved her," he murmured, watching the liquor swirl before he drank. "I gave her the best I had."

"Did you ever consider that maybe she didn't give her best? Maybe she was the one who didn't measure up?"

He studied Miranda over the rim of his glass. "No."

"Maybe you should. Or maybe you should consider that the best you had and the best she had didn't equal the best together. Marriages fail all the time. People get over it."

He studied the liquor, watching the light flicker through the glass. "Maybe if they didn't get over it so easily, marriages wouldn't fail so often."

"And maybe if people didn't pretend love makes the world go round, they'd pick their partners with more care."

"Love does make the world go round, Miranda. That's why the world's so fucked up."

He lifted his glass and drank deeply.